What makes a scary game?

In an attempt to stop neglecting the blog, I've decided to bring up a topic that has often come up around the time of the "Tagged" video, scary games! When simple PMs had come along about them, I seemed to find myself being a lot more long-winded than intended in response. I know this post may have little to nothing to do with the videos on my channel, but this also isn't the first post I've made that talks about video games, so I figure it couldn't hurt to do another one every now and again.

Obviously I've been quite a fan of the scary games. Scary movies may have been around the longest, but I believe the true essence of fear and immersion has been mastered by video games. Nowadays, it's easy to watch a scary movie with how predictable and formulaic they've become. There's the camera angles that seem to give away what's about to happen next, the very stupid main characters who travel together and are marked for death by being sexy, stoned or comedic and of course the fact that these movies need to cling to jump out scares repeated to the point of sigh inducing. A movie normally isn't very entertaining to watch without multiple characters interacting with each other either, but a video game however, puts the player in the perspective of the protagonist, giving a game the edge in allowing him to be completely isolated and forced to rely on him/her self to survive. This is where a game can excel greatly in delivering the element of fear. The experience no longer is in the hands of the actors, but in the world around the player. In a video game if the world can draw the player in, piss poor voice acting can be excused, where as in a movie, if the acting is crap, it's going to take away most, if not everything from the presentation.

Unfortunately, and I don't know about you, but I'm starting to see scary games take the same path as scary movies where the designers just don't seem to be grasping the concept of real fear anymore. As times grew current, I'm starting to see a repeated pattern when new survival horror games come out. Back then, they truly got it right with titles like Resident Evil 2, Silent Hill 1 - 4, the Penumbra series, Fatal Frame, Condemned, etc. Nowadays, many of the newer titles like Dead Space and F.E.A.R 2 makes it feel like they've really lost their grip on the element of fear. I wish I had a bit more titles to give examples of, but unfortunately, the selection of current dated survival horror games are slim and none, probably to make room for more retarded, stale, realistic shooters with regenerating health and chest high walls to hide behind so companies can make a quick buck. Speaking of which, that's probably where the survival horror platform fell short, because game companies stopped trying to appeal to a certain audience and just tried to appeal more to the majority audience of instant gratification schmucks who hate challenges and can't stand not having a large gun in hand. I also get the feeling that companies have gotten so used to appealing to that majority, that when they try to make a scary game, they get stuck in the habit of giving the protagonist large weapons and armor to use. That's where the fear falls flat on it's face. With a suit of protective armor and a gun that blows the enemy apart, monster encounters become something to look forward to, so the fear of getting killed ruins the atmosphere of the game as well, leaving the game's only leg to stand on being jump out scares. That's where both F.E.A.R 2 and Dead Space suffered. The games didn't scare anymore, they only startled. I'm not saying either games were BAD by any means, they were fun enough, but still not scary because they lacked the stillness and atmosphere to make it properly scary. Basically, empowering the player and giving him too many things to shoot at takes away from the fear factor.

Now looking back at my all time favorite horror series, Penumbra, that's the kind of game that had me spazzing out every 10 minutes and minimizing the game so I can watch retarded YouTube videos to calm down. Then I'd regain the will to keep going and repeat 10 minutes later, especially since I always played it at night with the lights off. The thing that made Penumbra stand out was, you were trapped underground alone, helpless, desperate and you fought like shit. You were able to fight a bit in Penumbra: Overture, poorly at best, but in Penumbra: Black Plague, you didn't get a single weapon. Your only option was to escape the spaced out monster encounters through hiding and luring them into traps, otherwise, you were screwed. That, my friends, is how you pull off a true horror game. Put the player in the shoes of an average Joe, a more realistic character that didn't seem like they came out of a Hollywood movie and could beat ass while still being a skinny civilian. Next, make use of stillness in the game! Let the atmosphere and world around them scare the player too and when they do encounter monsters, the player should dread the encounter due to his lack of fighting skills and the fact that he can't find much ammo IF he were given a firearm. As for the monsters themselves, they should pose a true threat if the player attempted to go up against them.

So that, in a nutshell, is my opinion on a truly scary game formula. I'm hoping that developers don't keep up the bad habit of empowering players in a supposedly scary game and hopefully Frictional Games' upcoming title, "Amnesia" will set a nice standard on how to get the job done.